An Evening With Amy Tan: The Best-Selling Author Opens Up

Get to know the woman behind the words on the pages of the books you've loved. Amy Tan is the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife and The Bonesetter's Daughter. Her newest novel, The Valley of Amazement, set to be released this fall, is an evocative epic of two women's intertwined fates and their search for identity. Spend an intimate evening with Tan at the Music Center at Strathmore as she talks about her life and her writing. There's even an audience Q&A in which you get the chance to ask her questions directly.

Leave home early, even if you live close. At this time of year and time of evening, Rockville Pike and other roads are usually bumper-to-bumper, plus the line to get into the parking lot (from Rockville Pike onto Tuckerman Lane, (vs. where you enter for the Mansion, despite the posted road sign), is one lane, also bumper to bumper. Parking is free but another challenge still lies ahead with long waits for elevators in the parking garage, transversing the long, elevated corrider between the parking lot and the venue, and additional elevators with long lines inside the venue, which take you to the level of your assigned seats (there is an elevator operator checking tickets and telling individuals if they're on the correct elevator, etc.). If you're not familiar with this whole scenario, best to leave a trail of breadcrumbs from your parking space to your seat, assuming there are no birds in sight. : \